Business & Finance
Efficiency’s Added Benefit: Jobs
A new benefit from energy efficiency is gaining momentum on Capitol Hill: the jobs that could be created.
Rep. Steve Israel sees potential for job creation through energy efficiency. (Photo By: Michael W. Kahn)
“We have lost jobs. We have lost our competitive edge when it comes to clean technologies,” Rep. Steve Israel, D-N.Y., said March 10 at the Alliance to Save Energy’s annual Great Energy Efficiency Day. But, he added, it doesn’t have to be that way.
“We have always replaced jobs that have become less productive with jobs that represent our truest potential and value,” Israel said. “The next great generator of jobs to replace the jobs that have been lost is in energy efficiency and clean technologies.”
Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., also sees opportunity.
“Buildings represent 40 percent of the energy use in the U.S.,” Pryor told the audience. At the same time, “one in five construction workers are out of work—that’s 1.7 million construction workers.”
“So on one hand, we know that we have some inefficient buildings out there. On the other hand, we know that we have a big sector of the economy where there’s a lot of unemployment,” Pryor said. “Let’s put those two ideas together.”
Dena G. Stoner, NRECA vice president of government relations, said that in the world of policymaking, job creation “has become as important an objective as the energy aspect.”
“A well-designed efficiency focus can target a group of issues: lowering the need for new generation, lowering consumers’ costs and the creation of jobs for small business and the consumer goods manufacturing sector, which is still lagging,” Stoner said. “This policy area has the potential to forge some bipartisan support in a polarized Congress.”
Stoner said that NRECA is supportive of efficiency incentives so long as these proposals do not include a federal efficiency mandate. She noted that after Easter, the Senate intends to move a jobs bill that focuses on efficiency.
Pryor said the United States must “continue with the bold and the new initiatives that will spur the scientific breakthroughs and innovations” needed in energy technology. Israel put it another way. “I refuse—and you should refuse—to say it’s OK for China to beat us in energy efficiency.”